Thousands of bombers ready to greet US attack: Iran: UN chief backs talks
TEHRAN, April 16: Iran again warned the United States on Sunday against attacking its nuclear facilities, saying it had tens of thousands of suicide bombers ready and can count on the support of militants across the region.
With the Islamic regime continuing to flout a UN Security Council demand for a freeze in uranium enrichment by April 28, Pope Benedict XVI also weighed into the dispute — appealing for “serious and honest” talks to achieve “an honourable solution” for all parties.
“The United States should be aware that it is not in a position to create another crisis in the region,” Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said.
“Iran has not excluded the possibility of an American aggression against it,” influential former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani also said during a visit to Syria.
“Iran is undergoing psychological warfare and is resolved to defend its rights,” Rafsanjani said, adding that “the United States will not risk using force.”
In a powerful display of defiance, an Iranian group said it had managed to enroll 55,000 people for suicide attacks against Israel and Western powers.
The crisis over Iran’s nuclear ambitions has worsened over the past week following Tehran’s announcement that its scientists had managed to enrich uranium to the level needed to make reactor fuel.
Iran says its programme is strictly peaceful, but enrichment technology can also be extended to make atomic weapons — hence the UN demand for a moratorium while an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) probe continues.
And the Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington-based think tank, claimed satellite images showed Iran has expanded and reinforced its main nuclear fuel processing facilities in Isfahan and Natanz, possibly to prepare them for a military strike. The United States is now pushing for tough UN action, with several US press reports saying that military options were being looked into.
But Iran — buoyed by high oil prices and confident that US troops are bogged down in neighbouring Iraq and Afghanistan — appears confident it can deter any sanctions or attack.
“You can start a war but it won’t be you who finishes it,” General Yahya Rahim Safavi, the head of the Revolutionary Guards, said on Friday in one of Iran’s boldest statements yet.
Conservative President Dr Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has even predicted the elimination of the Israel.
Palestinian militant leaders, in Tehran to attend a conference aimed at drumming up financial support for the Hamas government, have also rallied behind Tehran — strengthening Iran’s hand in the stand-off.
Hamas supremo Khaled Meshaal vowed the new Palestinian government would stand by its position, supported by Iran, not to recognise Israel and also secured 50 million dollars in funding from the Islamic republic.
China’s assistant foreign minister Cui Tiankai has also met Iran’s Supreme National Security Council chief Ali Larijani as well as nuclear negotiator Javad Vaidi, state television said.
UN CHEIF: UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan wants a negotiated solution to the crisis over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, he said in an interview published on Sunday in the ABC newspaper.
Annan told the conservative Madrid daily during his visit last week to Spain, that any military potential military operation against Iran would only worsen an already tense international situation.
“I think the issue is being handled properly by the International Atomic Energy Agency. I still believe that the best solution is a negotiated one, and I don’t see what a military operation would resolve,” ABC quoted Annan as saying.
“I hope that a negotiating spirit prevails and that the military option is just fruit of speculation,” he said.—AP/AFP
TEHRAN, April 16: Iran again warned the United States on Sunday against attacking its nuclear facilities, saying it had tens of thousands of suicide bombers ready and can count on the support of militants across the region.
